The Samurai
by Liar of Lesbos
Summary: Who the hell was this guy?


Okay... First story! Yay! Please read and review, I want to know whether or not you liked it or not but Please, no flaming. It just isn't nice. If you find any inconsistencies, please tell me so that I can fix it. Plus, are Rukia's eyes really blue? I think so... Anyway, Thanks for reading and I hope you like it!

Name: The Samurai  
Spoilers: Only the basic plot of Bleach and the very basics of Gin's backstory (from Gintama)  
Summary(in more depth): Ichigo and Rukia go to kill a Hollow, but find a weird man already taking care of it.  
Rating: T for safety.  
Disclaimer: I have never owned Bleach or Gintama. If I did... *cackle*

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"Damn," Ichigo muttered as he jumped from one poorly built roof to another in Edo's Kabuki-cho district. It was taking them too long to get to the site of the latest Hollow attack. Who knew how many had already died while waiting for the two shinigami to come?

He snuck a look at Rukia who was shunpoing right behind him. "How much longer?" he asked. He'd feel guilty if there were many already dead by the time they got there.

"Not much," Rukia replied, looking at her Hollow sensing cell phone. Ichigo noted just how short she seemed today, but wisely decided not to mention it. Even while shunpoing, a piece of black hair strayed into her face. Her mouth and large blue eyes combined to give her a look of grim determination.

"We're there." Rukia declared as if the giant Hollow standing in the middle of the street wasn't a good enough sign.

"Yeah," Ichigo said. His legs came to a halt as he pulled a huge sword off his back. The Hollow was normal enough. Big and ugly, it was completely black with a hideous mask. It roared in anger loud enough to shake the buildings around it. The roar seemed to be caused by the odd man standing in front of the monster.

The man had curly silver hair that had undoubtedly caused him as much pain as Ichigo's own vibrant orange. His kimono was only on one arm, but he had a black outfit beneath the mostly white one. He was holding a bokuto with engraved words on its hilt in a perfect fighting stance. Just the presence of the wooden sword was an amazing thing in this era of the Sword Ban. His eyes mirrored the Hollow's roar and reminded him of Seireitei's 11th squad.

Now that he looked closely, he could see that the Hollow wasn't completely black. Red was freely flowing from its side. His eyes checked to confirm his suspicion- yep, there was blood dripping from the tip of the man's bokuto.

Who the hell was this guy? A curly haired, bokuto carrying (why not a katana if you're going to carry a sword?), warrior eyed guy in the worst part of Edo. Not exactly a common site. Ichigo found it hard to believe that the man could see the monster, let alone fight it. He wouldn't have been doing this good against a Hollow before Rukia had turned him into a shinigami.

But the man wasn't done. He was quick as he lashed his bokuto out at the monster's leg. Despite the Hollow's attempt to back away, the hit connected and sent the Hollow to its knees. The man began a series of vicious attacks to the Hollow's chest before finally making an upward slash to its head. A peaceful face shimmered briefly before the whole body disintegrated.

The man hardly seemed concerned with the giant monster, the momentary face, or any of the insane things he had seen that day. Instead, he dashed to an odd-looking girl knocked out cold on the sidewalk. "Kagura!" he exclaimed in a burly, worry-filled voice.

Ichigo glanced at Rukia for the first time since they had arrived. Rukia's face mimicked his own confusion. He looked back at the curly haired man. He was dangling a piece of sukonbu in front of the girl's (Kagura, as the man had called her.) face, taunting her with eating her stash. A ginormous dog bounded over and nudged her arm gently, an adjective Ichigo never would've believed possible to describe such a big creature before.

Ichigo shook his head as if to shake the strangeness out. He asked himself again who this weird man was. This time, Rukia responded to his internal question. "A samurai," she said, unable to keep the awe out of her voice. Ichigo stared at her.

A samurai. The noble warriors who had been suppressed by the invading aliens, and abandoned by their own government. Brave, loyal, and heroic, Ichigo considered them to be the stuff of legends. (Not that he wasn't.) He'd heard there were still remnants of the old people; either fighting futilely to make the aliens leave, or living their lives as fully as possible while abiding by their Bushido. He vaguely wondered which group the man before him belonged to.

Deciding it was not necessary for him to know, Ichigo turned to leave.

"Oi," the samurai said in a voice just as husky, but much less worried than before. "What was that thing?"

Ichigo turned back to the man. He was unsure whether to tell the man the truth or not, when Rukia spoke for him. "A Hollow," she said simply.

"Great explanation," the samurai responded, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"They are souls of the dead that stayed on Earth too long and became consumed by despair and hate. They attack souls both living and dead." Rukia clarified.

"Who are you?" Ichigo asked the samurai, the long conversation allowing curiosity to get the better of him. He gave the samurai no time to react to the news of Hollows.

"Sakata Gintoki," the samurai said, fixing his gaze on Ichigo for half a second. 'Kagura' was still cradled carefully in his arms.

"Sakata… Gintoki…" Rukia whispered, her voice soft with her lapse of memory and her eyes downcast in bemusement. Suddenly her face shot up, a smile of pride and relief across it, "Shiroyasha!" The smile faded as she realized what she had just remembered.

By this time, Ichigo was point black confused. What the hell was a White Demon? A type of Hollow? Another creature he had never heard of before? Ichigo did what he always did when confused on such topics; asked everyone.

"What the hell is a Shiroyasha?" He asked, trying to catch Rukia's eye.

Rukia was still staring at Sakata, and didn't take her eyes off him while she answered the powerful shinigami, "Shiroyasha was a warrior during the war against the Amanto. He fought as fierce as a demon and was one of the few never cut down throughout the whole war."

Sakata was watching the conversation with a vague kind of interest. The intense warrior look had faded from his eyes. Now they more closely resembled those of a dead fish. "More importantly," Sakata asked. "Who are you to know my distant past?"

Ichigo was wondering the same thing. Why in the world did Rukia care about this Shiroyasha? Sure he had probably killed a lot of people during the Amanto War (although, it was kind of hard to imagine that a man with dead fish eyes could be a legendary fighter), but the shinigami didn't keep tabs of who was killing who, or how many that who was killing. They didn't care about anything that didn't concern them… Or, at least, as far as Ichigo knew they didn't.

"Ukitake-taichou told me a story once. About a samurai named Sakata whose hair was like his own." Rukia responded in a thoughtful tone.

If Sakata recognized any of what Rukia had mentioned he gave no indication. Not a twitch of his lips or a flicker in his eyes at the tale. Ichigo was starting to think that Rukia had just made the whole thing up when Sakata stood, Kagura gathered in his arms.

He began to walk down the street, the large dog on his heels. Ichigo stared, wondering again whether he should speak up. It seemed to be an anti-climatic send off to an interesting man if Sakata just walked away. Now Ichigo had more questions than answers and he might never know whether Sakata was the man Rukia had been told about. His previous curiosity had led to more curiosity, and more than a little confusion. Even so, Ichigo kept his mouth shut and stared at the samurai's back.

Sakata was at the street corner, where he could turn away and leave their sight. He'd probably be lost forever, or at least until he died and went to Soul Society. Ichigo though the man would probably become a shinigami later on…

Sakata had stopped quietly. He spared a hand to wave at the two perplexed shinigami. "Tell Juushiro-kun hello from Gin." he said in a loud and lazy way.

The samurai kept walking around the corner until he was out of sight, lost forever. Neither Rukia nor Ichigo moved a step after him. Once again, the words that should have cleared away his bewilderedness only served to leave him with even more questions than before they had been uttered. Determining to ask Ukitake-taichou about Shiroyasha's story, he jumped on the roof that he had only a couple minutes ago jumped off of. Ichigo didn't think he could ever forget those few, very befuddling minutes.

As he jumped from one poorly built roof to another in Edo's Kabuki-cho district, he found himself thinking that if given that chance, he would like Sakata. Oh yes, he'd like the strange samurai very much.


End file.
